In the meantime, here are my two Upper Valley snapping turtle stories:

ONE. In my first few months here, in 2012, I banded together with a random group of passersby to help a snapping turtle cross Route 5 in Norwich near King Arthur Flour. At first (in what was, in retrospect, an Obvious Mistake) I just tried to pick up the turtle from the middle of the street, and the thing basically back-flipped off the ground and nearly shredded my face off, so I learned that lesson pretty quickly. Ultimately we used a random shopping basket and umbrella from the back of my car along with somebody’s ski pole to ferry the turtle across the way. It was one of my first very Upper Valley experiences™.

2012.

Go free, Dr. Snaps, which is what I just named you right now.

TWO. Here is a dramatic reenactment of a scene from this summer involving me and a snapping turtle in Enfield’s Cole Pond, when neither of us knew the other one was trying to lay out on a sunny rock and she walked headfirst into my toe.